A High-Resolution Multi-Refection Time-of-Fight Mass Spectrometer with Atmospheric Pressure Interface

Abstract

To perform rapid mass analysis with high resolution, an Atmospheric Pressure Interface Multi-reflection Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer was developed that reflects ions by electrostatic mirrors and forces them to take a folded flight path, increasing flight distances by orders of magnitude to achieve high resolution. To this end, an ultra-high differential vacuum system was designed to give a more than 2 km mean free path. The results indicated that, coupling with an atmospheric ionization, an analyzer vacuum of 6.8 × 10–6 Pa, and a record resolution of 116,050 for Cs+ ions after flight times of 18 ms are achieved.

Keywords: Multi-reflection Time-of-Flight Mass Spectrometer, atmospheric pressure interface, high resolution